


Tumblr Prompts

by castiowl



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Bruce Banner Making Poor Choices, Bucky Barnes & Bruce Banner Friendship, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Finding Out About Those Choices and Blowing a Gasket, Crop Tops and Short Jorts, Established Relationship, Fanart Included, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Making Even Worse Choices, Suicidal Thoughts, Trauma, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-02 01:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6544054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castiowl/pseuds/castiowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(1) Is there a reason you're naked in my bed? / Don't you ever do that again!<br/>(2) YOU DID WHAT?!<br/>(3) You fainted... straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention you didn't have to go to such extremes.<br/>(4) I swear it was an accident.<br/>(5) You heard me. Take. It. Off. (The Sad One)<br/>(6) You heard me. Take. It. Off. (The Happy One)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Is there a reason you're naked in my bed? / Don't you ever do that again!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt submitted by [ace-prosecutie](http://ace-prosecutie.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.

The room was dark, but Bucky’s heightened eyesight and the eternal, arylide dusk of the city lights made him able to see the prostrate figure on his bed.

“Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?” he asked as he pulled his shirt over his head. Steve wasn’t supposed to get in for another three days, which meant the mission went very well. 

“Our bed,” Steve replied, his voice muffled by the pillow he currently had his face shoved into.

Or very poorly.

The overwhelming smell of Steve – which was the scentless laundry detergent they used, plus that disgusting artisan coffee he drank, sweat, and an artificial flowery scent from the shampoo he used in the purple bottle – was thrown into sharp relief when the anti-septic smell hit Bucky like a ton a bricks. His stomach dropped and his heart beat a quickened tattoo against his ribs. He scrambled for the light and flipped it on to see… 

“Christ, Steve,” Bucky breathed.

Steve was on his stomach and naked, yes, but only because it would have been very, very painful to wear clothes. His entire back and the back of his thighs, even down to his ankles were covered in fine, pink lines of recently-healed, puckered flesh. Most of the blood had been cleaned up, but there were some areas that couldn’t be reached and it looked newly wet, a reminder that this had happened very recently in spite of Steve’s accelerated healing.

Steve groaned. “Light hurts, Buck,” he said.

“Yeah, well, tough shit. What the hell happened?” Bucky climbed next to Steve, hand hovering over the worst of the gashes, wanting to comfort but knowing to touch him would be excruciatingly painful.

Steve sighed and turned his head toward Bucky. He looked tired, but otherwise his face was unharmed. A small comfort, considering. “Tactical error,” Steve said with a small twitch of his lips. Only Steve could laugh at himself when he looked like a Freddy Krueger victim.

“You’ll be the death of me,” Bucky said. He quickly retreated to the bathroom and returned with a wetted, warm hand towel. Steve hissed as Bucky dabbed around the worst of the wounds – a nearly six-inch-long gash that was deep enough that the flesh hadn’t quite knitted together yet. 

“Tell me what happened,” Bucky said.

“It doesn’t–”

“If you tell me it doesn’t matter, I swear to God I’ll beat your ass, Rogers.”

“You’d kick me when I’m down?”

“I’d wait ‘til you were better. I’m not an _animal_.”

Steve let out a breath and closed his eyes, wincing slightly whenever Bucky got too close to a wound. “Fell on some glass.”

“Some?”

“A lot.”

“Shouldn’t your suit have protected you from this?”

“It did. The glass was facing up. I sort of… fell…”

Bucky froze. “You jumped.”

“Well–”

Bucky took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. It probably wouldn’t be in good taste to punch the guy who looked like mincemeat. 

“I had to,” Steve said. “They pushed this woman out the window. I knew I could survive the fall, Buck. I wouldn’t have–”

“Don’t you ever do that again!” Bucky snapped.

There was a beat of silence. “You’d rather I let her fall to her death?”

“If it means keeping you in one piece, then yeah!”

Steve turned his head back into the pillow and let out a soft groan.

Bucky closed his eyes and swallowed his anger. Temporarily, at least. This argument would no doubt follow them to their graves – Steve’s first, if he kept this shit up. “At least next time, try and land on something that isn’t glass? Try for a trampoline or a giant pie.”

Steve snorted a laugh and turned his head to look at Bucky again. “I’ll talk to Clint. He was in the circus. I’m sure he could come up with something.”

Bucky grinned and patted Steve’s ass – the one part of him that seemed to have miraculously escaped getting eviscerated. “I’ll hold you to that,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Reblog this ficlet on Tumblr!](http://bartlebies.tumblr.com/post/142309121945/69)


	2. YOU DID WHAT?!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt submitted by [sssssssim](http://sssssssim.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.
> 
> Content warning for past suicidal thoughts.

“YOU DID WHAT?!”

The shout came from the living room and Steve almost took out the corner between the hall and the bedroom trying to run there as fast he could. He stopped short at the entrance, eyes tracking around the room looking for threats. The only thing, however, was Bucky sitting ramrod straight on the couch, book in his glinting left hand, and staring at Steve.

No, not staring.

_Glaring._

“Buck?” Steve said. He surreptitiously patted his front pocket, but his phone was back in his bedroom. He felt woefully unprepared. Sam had said this might happen, that Bucky might revert back to his violent tendencies, that he might be triggered and dissociate. Steve would have to deal with it on his own, that’s all. He couldn’t rely on Sam to be the calming voice of sage wisdom all the time, right?

“Buck, it’s okay. We’re in New York. No one is going to hurt you. You’re safe. I’m safe.”

“Oh, you’re safe, are you?” 

Steve was taken aback and he opened his mouth to reply, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. At the very least, it didn’t seem like Bucky had relapsed into his old, murder-y ways. Which wasn’t to say he didn’t look murderous, because he did. But it was a familiar, disdainful look Steve had come to know growing up in Brooklyn before the war. It would almost be comforting if Bucky wasn’t scowling so hard.

“I… Yeah, we’re safe. Is this…? What’s happening right now?” Steve said.

“What’s happening is I’ve been doin’ some light reading.” Bucky brandished the book in Steve’s direction. It looked to be a non-fiction book, and when Bucky finally held it still, Steve saw an old black-and-white photo of himself on the cover. The title read _A Comprehensive History of the Star-Spangled Man_. There was a subtitle that Steve couldn’t read from this angle.

“Oh,” Steve said. “I… Is it any good?”

Bucky’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. “Any good?” He feigned interest in the book again and flipped to a passage that had been dogeared. “Well, I liked this part. Want me to read it to you?” He didn’t wait for a reply to start reading: “Reports of that fateful day are scarce. Official documentation was encrypted and sealed at the time, and following Rogers’ return to the modern day and the subsequent leak of all SHIELD information to the masses, there was little mention of the incident that effectively changed the course of human history. In spite of copious amounts of research and investigating, none have found any sanctioned account. Therefore, this book, like many before it, must rely solely on the account given by Agent Margaret Carter in her well-known retelling on April 7, 1971. Carter has not retold this story since, but the extensive interview was recorded and transcribed below.”

Bucky glanced up from the book with a strangely blank expression. “Do you have any idea what he’s talking about, Steve?” he asked.

Steve hadn’t felt so trapped since Sister Mary-Margaret had called him out for not wearing a belt to church in front of the whole class. Even so, Bucky didn’t seem inclined to relent. 

“You seem confused, so let me just skip ahead here…” Bucky flipped a few pages and trailed his finger down the page until he came to the spot he needed. He cleared his throat and read, “Rogers dipped the nose of the plane down. It has been estimated that the _Valkyrie_ reached nearly 900 mph at the height of its acceleration toward the Arctic shelf. Most people would have lost consciousness, but due to Rogers’ unique resistance to oxygen deficiency, it has been surmised that he remained conscious during the fall. Blah, blah, blah. Oh, here’s my favorite bit.” Bucky cleared his throat and read in a loud, clear voice: “Rogers sacrificed himself to save the country he loved best, the country that had initially asked him to be his mascot. Instead, Rogers became the hero he was always destined to be.” Bucky snapped the book shut, a soft noise that somehow reverberated in Steve’s very bones. “Well, isn’t that sweet? You know what else the book says? Says you’ve never commented on what happened. So, _Rogers_ , you got a damn comment now?”

Steve searched for something to say, but he was entirely blank. Every excuse, every justification he had to defend his actions went up in smoke when faced with Bucky’s righteous fury. He’d never had to explain _why_ he did it before. Everyone else had just been grateful he hadn’t allowed the Red Skull to decimate the eastern seaboard.

“Well, I had to,” Steve said. He knew he’d said the wrong thing as soon as it was out of his mouth, but it was too late. 

Bucky’s ire seemed to fill the room, like a million birds fluffing their feathers indignantly in Steve’s direction. “Oh, you _had_ to,” Bucky repeated. “You _had_ to. Christ, well, that clears everything up! You _had_ to!” Bucky was on his feet and advancing on Steve. “You _had_ to chase Red Skull onto a fighter plane! You had to crash a bomber into the Arctic! You _had_ to! YOU HAD TO!” He pushed Steve hard on the chest, forcing him to fall back a step.

“Yes!” Steve snapped back. Bucky paused briefly, leaning out of Steve’s space. “I _had_ to,” Steve continued, filled with his own, tempered fury. “I wasn’t going to let thousands – millions of people die so I could have a very slim chance of living.”

“And I suppose leading up to this critical mission, you took all necessary precautions,” Bucky said. “You had a team to back you up, contingency plans, and a goddamn _parachute_.”

“Buck–”

“Don’t. Don’t.” Bucky dropped his head and ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. When he looked back at Steve, he looked older, like those 70 years spent a victim had left an indelible mark, not quite visible. “Just tell me you didn’t do it on purpose. Tell me you wanted to make it out alive.”

Steve felt the burning behind his eyes and had to will himself to continue looking at Bucky. “I didn’t have a choice,” Steve managed to say, his voice breaking slightly on the last word.

“Bullshit!” Bucky replied viciously. “You had a choice. You chose to sink that plane with you in it. Real convenient that plane didn’t have an autopilot, huh? That you had to see it out ‘til the end?”

“What do you want me to say?!”

“I want you to tell me that you didn’t sink that goddamn plane because of me!” 

“Well, you’ve always said I was a shitty liar, so I won’t bother,” Steve replied bitterly.

Bucky’s chest was heaving with every breath, his anger seeping from every pore. “What about Peggy, huh? What about your gal?”

“What about her?”

“Didn’t you want to spend the rest of your life with her? And don’t tell me it wasn’t real, pal. You said it yourself – you’re a shit liar.”

“It was real.”

“All right, then, what’s the problem? You wanted her! She wanted you! You coulda gotten married, had a billion shitty little kids with her! Wasn’t that what you wanted?!”

Steve swallowed down the lump in his throat. “Of course. Of course I wanted that,” he said. “But I wanted to die more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Reblog this ficlet on Tumblr!](http://bartlebies.tumblr.com/post/142262354990/sssssssim-43-you-did-what-not-sure)


	3. You fainted... straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention you didn't have to go to such extremes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt submitted by [camwolfe](http://archiveofourown.org/users/camwolfe) ([cameronwolfe](http://cameronwolfe.tumblr.com) on Tumblr).
> 
> Also submitted by anonymous on Tumblr.

When Steve wakes, it’s an agonizingly slow process. His eyelids feel too heavy and his brain takes far too long to come back online. He’s laying on something soft and he’s warm, so he must be home – or whatever he’s supposed to call Tony Stark’s Tower. But he wasn’t there last he remembers, he was… 

It comes back to him, memories crashing like a tidal wave and drowning his senses. He gasps into consciousness, sitting up with great heaving breaths. He is in Stark Tower, but he’s on the common floor. He’s on the oversized corner couch, a familiar afghan thrown over his legs and he looks to his left and he can’t breathe, he can’t think, he can’t believe because it’s him. It’s Bucky.

He can’t remember what happened exactly – it’s a blur of heavy machinery and HYDRA operatives and electric shocks straight to his core. He thinks he remembers Sam and Natasha being there, but can’t remember the specifics. He does remember Bucky. He remembers his body flung haplessly into the fight, driving his metal fist into body after body, snapping necks and crushing throats with brutal efficiency.

“Buck,” Steve says, but his voice cracks and it barely comes out.

Bucky’s looking at him with a soft, familiar smile, head falling to the side lazily. His long hair brushes past his shoulders and onto the black combat gear he’s still wearing. He’s sitting on the glass coffee table just in front of Steve.

“Mornin’,” Bucky says and his voice is like coming home. It’s deep and rich and strikingly familiar.

Steve swallows and blinks once, afraid Bucky will disappear if he can’t keep his eyes on him. “What happened?” Steve asks. He wants to ask why he’s here, where he was, why he didn’t come home in the first place, why he saved Steve from the river, why he left, is he okay?

“You fainted… straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention, you didn’t have to go to such extremes.”

Steve chokes out a laugh because it’s too much. But he’s not close enough and before he can think about it, he’s surging off the couch at Bucky, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s middle, pressing his face against the tactical vest that’s all smoky leather and the sharp tang of blood and sweat. He buries his face there, thinks he could die and that would be okay if he never has to leave again. Bucky’s still at first, but he quickly goes pliant, dropping a heavy hand on Steve’s shoulder and then his other hand to the crown of his head where he runs his fingers through Steve’s hair.

“Do you remember?” Steve asks when he pulls back – minutes, hours, weeks later.

“Yes.”

“Everything?”

“Yes.”

“You left. You were gone. Why didn’t you come back?”

For the first time, Bucky stops caressing Steve’s hair, but he quickly picks back up. “Reconciliation.”

Steve can’t understand it, doesn’t know what Bucky could possibly have to be forgiven for.

“Couldn’t just do ten Hail Marys?” Steve asks.

Mirth fills Bucky’s eyes and his lip twitches almost imperceptibly. “Not this time,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Reblog this ficlet on Tumblr!](http://bartlebies.tumblr.com/post/142375987185/shit-shit-there-are-too-many-options-here-shit)


	4. I swear it was an accident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt submitted by [scarlettwitchery](http://scarlettwitchery.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.

“I swear it was an accident,” Bucky says, and the way his eyes are wide and he’s frantically clenching and unclenching his metal fist probably means he’s serious.

Bruce Banner is out cold in the middle of the gym, almost eerily dead center of the sparring zone where there are gymnastic mats to cushion any falls.

Well, it’s not Bruce Banner, exactly.

It’s the Hulk.

“You knocked out the Hulk?” Steve asks and he tries not to sound impressed, he really does, but the number of people who have succeeded in knocking out the Hulk until now is zero. Steve would have had his money on Thor, if he’d been stupid enough to take the bet in the first place.

Tony whistles low as he saunters over. He stands over the Hulk’s body, bending slightly at the waist, hands on his hips. “Y’know, I’ve never seen him up close for this long before. He’s kinda cute.”

“Should we get a doctor?” Bucky asks and he runs his flesh-and-blood hand through his hair three times in a row, his eyes flicking back and forth between the Hulk and Stark.

“A doctor?” Tony repeats. He crouches next to the Hulk’s head and smacks him a couple times. “What’s a doctor gonna do?” Tony stands and turns to Bucky. “How’d you do it, anyway?”

“I don’t know! I swear, we were just sparring and– I didn’t even touch him! He just went down! I didn’t–”

“Hey, hey, it’s fine. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Steve says. He puts a hand on the small of Bucky’s back. Bucky whimpers something barely audible, but presses into the contact.

“I’ll get– Oh, I was gonna say I’ll get Banner to take a look, but I guess…” Tony looks back at the Hulk. “Well, I’ll see if Jane’s up to anything? Man, we are woefully short on super power specialists, aren’t we?”

Their need for a specialist is forgone, however, when the Hulk makes a grunting noise and several cringe-worthy, bone-popping minutes later, they’re staring at a shirtless Bruce Banner. He groans, rolls on his side, and retches up something lime green.

“Hot,” Tony quips, stepping back over to Bruce. “How ya feelin’?”

“Shit,” Bruce grunts.

“See, that’s why I love you. You’re so eloquent! Succinct!” Tony holds out his hand and Bruce takes it so he’s standing on his feet, slightly unsteady.

“How long was I out?” Bruce asks.

“Ten minutes?” Bucky guesses. “Are you sure you’re okay? What’d I do? I mean, I didn’t hurt you, did I? I thought when I did that uppercut I might have heard something crack, but–”

Bruce waves his hand. “Not your fault, not your fault. I was experimenting with sedatives this morning.”

“You were _what_?!” Tony exclaims.

Bruce looks only slightly abashed and mumbles something about contingency plans. Tony takes him by the arm and practically drags him out of the gym, lecturing the whole way about _responsible experimenting_ and _controlled fucking environments, asshole_ , which is rich coming from him.

“You okay?” Steve asks once they’re alone.

Bucky nods, but when Steve doesn’t say anything, he shakes his head. Steve sighs and pulls him into a hug.

“I thought I hurt him. I thought… what if I lost control? It didn’t feel like I did, but what if I did and didn’t even realize? What if I left and the Soldier took over?”

“Then I’d find you again, like I did the first time,” Steve says and hopes Bucky can hear that he means every word he’s saying. “I wouldn’t stop until I found you.”

It takes two long, silent minutes for Bucky to stop shaking, and then two more before he mutters, “You’re a goddamn sap, Rogers.”

“Yeah, well, it takes one to know one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Reblog this ficlet on Tumblr!](http://bartlebies.tumblr.com/post/142712879900/stevebucky-42-a-la-anders-grand-entrance-in)


	5. You heard me. Take. It. Off. (The Sad One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt submitted by [cabloom](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cabloom) ([cabloom](http://cabloom.tumblr.com) on Tumblr).

“I don’t– I’m not– What?”

“You heard me. Take. It. Off.” Bucky’s voice was oddly cold, each word clipped and calculated, and his eyes were unyieldingly emotionless.

Steve quickly unbuckled the chinstrap from his helmet and pulled his cowl off. He let the helmet fall to the carpeted floor of their apartment with a soft thud and resisted the urge to flatten his hair self-consciously.

The line of Bucky’s shoulders softened slightly and his eyes flitted over Steve’s features.

“Thought you liked the outfit,” Steve said. He’d meant it to be a quip, but his voice wavered and he couldn’t manage a smile. 

Still, Bucky’s soft exhale was something like a laugh. “Yeah,” he managed to say. “Sorry. The mask. It just reminds me… It’s just–”

Steve put up a hand. “You don’t have to explain, Buck.”

Bucky shook his head and finally let his eyes drop to the floor. He ran a hand through his long, unwashed hair.

“Have you been taking care of yourself?” Steve asked, somewhat unnecessarily. Judging by the bags under his eyes, Bucky hadn’t slept. He probably hadn’t showered either, and Steve would be willing to bet the sweatpants and hoodie he was wearing were the same Steve had left him in two days ago when he’d gone on the mission.

“Buck,” Steve said softly and took a few steps forward to lay a hand on the dip between Bucky’s neck and shoulder.

“I… I got a little stir crazy,” Bucky said with a sardonic smile. Then, with less levity, “I lost myself.”

“Well,” Steve said and managed a sincere smile for the first time, “I’m good at finding things. Think I can help?”

Bucky snorted a laugh. “Sure, pal.” 

Steve moved his hand up to Bucky’s jaw and Bucky preened into the touch, his eyes closing and his lips quirking up.

“Don’t know how you find anything behind those rose-colored glasses,” Bucky mumbled.

“I do all right.”

Bucky looked at Steve with a small smile. His eyes traveled up from Steve’s eyes to his hair and he raised his eyebrows slightly.

Steve scowled and flattened his hair with his hands. Bucky chuckled and said, “I think we both could do with a shower.”

“Oh yeah? You gonna help me outta these clothes?”

“You’re incorrigible,” Bucky said. He pushed Steve lightly on the chest, toward the back of the apartment and their roomy bathroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Reblog this ficlet on Tumblr!](http://bartlebies.tumblr.com/post/142149113620/cabloom-35-you-heard-me-take-it-off-i)


	6. You heard me. Take. It. Off. (The Happy One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt submitted by [tmhchimerical](http://tmhchimerical.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.

“Well I don’t see what’s so wrong with it. Natasha said I looked great. Clint couldn’t keep his eyes offa me.” Bucky put his hands on his hips and twisted to get a better view of himself in the full-length mirror.

“Yeah, I bet he couldn’t,” Steve muttered. Then, in a normal voice, he said, “How the hell did you even find that… outfit?”

“Back of your closet,” Bucky replied, finally turning to Steve.

“Yeah, real far back. Why’d you go back there?”

“Lookin’ for those old sketchbooks you had during the war. Remember you said they were in a closet somewhere. Found something way better. Should I ask why you even had this back here?” Bucky stepped toward Steve and cocked his head to the side.

The American flag croptop and short-short jeans left nothing to the imagination, especially given Bucky’s physique. Steve’s cheeks reddened. “Uh, Tony. Who else? It was a joke or something. I don’t pretend to understand his exceptional brand of humor. Wait, hold on, you went onto the common floor wearing that?”

Bucky smirked. “You jealous, Rogers? I didn’t let Clint cop a feel, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Well, I wasn’t until you said that.”

“You really don’t like it, huh?” There was a slight curve to Bucky’s mouth as he looked down at himself, something like disappointment.

“I never said that,” Steve said pointedly. He felt himself grow red when Bucky looked back up at Steve with raised eyebrows.

“Is that right?” Bucky said slowly. “You like it, don’t you?” Bucky took two agonizingly slow steps toward Steve and then closed the distance, pressing his mouth, open and wanting, against Steve’s.

Steve growled low in his chest. He pulled back briefly and said, “Take it off.”

Bucky huffed out a laugh and pressed a kiss to the side of Steve’s mouth. “What?”

“You heard me. Take. It. Off.”

“Why don’t you make me?”

It was all the invitation Steve needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fanart by me! I knew it'd come in handy one day. 
> 
>  
> 
> [Reblog this ficlet on Tumblr!](http://bartlebies.tumblr.com/post/142152627600/tmhchimerical-asked-35-you-heard-me-take)


End file.
